


Afterimage

by entanglednow



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Bathing/Washing, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Crowley's Love Language is Acts of Service (Good Omens), First Kiss, First Time, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Love, M/M, Massage, Mutual Pining, Pining, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Tenderness, Wing Injury, Wing Kink, Wings, metaphysical injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27118853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: Crowley receives a text from Aziraphale requesting help. Which leaves him with no choice but to head straight for the bookshop. They've both made choices in the past that have kept them apart. But now the angel needs him, and Crowley's feelings for him are about to be dragged into the light.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 148
Kudos: 873
Collections: Ixnael’s Recommendations, Our Own Side





	Afterimage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chamyl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamyl/gifts).



> This was written for Chamyl! It's a little bit late, since I was distracted by the incredibly fun collab we did together so I hope you'll forgive me. I filled this with stuff and things, and I really hope that you like it. It got a bit long because Crowley kept having feelings, so many feelings, like he does. Also, I added a more dramatic summary just for you :D
> 
> Thank you for being lovely and amazing, Cham! ♥
> 
> Huge thank you to imnotokaywiththerunning for the beta. They were kind enough to knock out my mistakes, for which I am very grateful.

The text doesn't tell him much, it's just a collection of words on the screen.

' _Crowley, could you come, I need your help_.'

The brevity of it, and the lack of ridiculous formality even in a text, is the reason that Crowley doesn't take much notice of traffic laws, or even the laws of physics, while driving to the bookshop. Aziraphale doesn't just toss out an eight-word sentence - especially not one with a request for help - unless something's badly wrong. Crowley's spine doesn't know whether it wants to lock itself solid or vibrate its way clear of his body, which is making driving an interesting experience.

There's an outside chance that it's Heaven or Hell, come back to have one last go at trying to hurt them, to punish them, to make them pay for their betrayal. Of course they couldn't just let them go. Of course they'd want revenge for it all. He'd been stupid to hope otherwise. They could even be holding the angel hostage at the shop. It could be a trap for Crowley. Not that it would matter, it wouldn't make a single bit of difference, of course he'd still show up. Where else was he supposed to be if Aziraphale was in danger?

He'd run through the text a few times in his head, just in case there was some sort of code to it. Something hidden in those eight words, something he needed to remember from their history that would tell him exactly what had happened to the angel, exactly what he needed to do. He doesn't see anything, but he'll admit that he's not exactly thinking straight.

What if they've hurt Aziraphale already? Or taken him somewhere Crowley can't follow? What if they'd forced him - or tricked him - into sending the text somehow, left the angel twisted up with guilt at what he'd see as a betrayal? Maybe Aziraphale hadn't even sent it, maybe it's already too late -

He stops thinking, stops considering scenarios. He doesn't even bother to park, just stops at a clumsy angle outside the shop. He trusts the Bentley to lock herself and keep away any nosey pedestrians, he's already halfway to the bookshop door, half expecting it to not open for him, but it does.

It swings wide, it lets him in, and once he's past the threshold it locks tightly behind him - which it's never done before. Crowley resists the urge to open his mouth and hiss. He braces himself for the trap to snap shut around him, for angels or demons to surge out of the shadows he knows far too well. But there's nothing, just the drift of old dust and silence. The shop doesn't smell like anyone except Aziraphale. Though the familiar, high ozone, vanilla and spring smell of him is strangely sharp in the air - almost acidic - in a way that Crowley can't help but think feels like pain.

"Aziraphale?!" he calls, and his voice vibrates as though it wants to keep hissing, made thick by the sound of his own thumping heartbeat. The fact that the shop isn't currently on fire is the only reason he's not yelling - the only reason he isn't tearing through the place looking for answers.

"I'm in here, Crowley." The words carry all the way to him and no further, and there's a quiet sort of calmness to them that tastes far too much like a lie.

He heads into the back with long strides and finds Aziraphale sitting in his favourite armchair. The sight of him is enough to send a wave of relief moving through him. But he knows immediately that something's wrong, the angel is holding himself too carefully, one hand curled around the fabric of the chair arm, the other settled on his own knee. His fingertips are dug in deeper than they should be, whitening around the nails, and his face is too pale, sweating at the hairline and his upper lip.

"Aziraphale, what's happened, what's wrong?" Crowley can't help the shiver of anger in his voice, better anger than quiet panic, which won't help him now. He can still taste the memory of burning books and he can feel the very edges of Aziraphale's pain, before the angel seems to notice how much of it he's spilling without intending to, and packs it away. But Crowley can see that it takes effort.

Someone has hurt the angel, and that's unforgivable.

Aziraphale breathes a relieved exhale. "You got my message then."

"Of course I got your message. Then I came straight here." He slinks closer, close enough to touch if he needed to, to reach out and steady the angel's trembling shoulders. But he doesn't - he doesn't. "What is it, what's wrong? Who did this?"

"No, no, entirely my own fault," Aziraphale says, which doesn't explain anything but Crowley's used to the angel needing a moment to put the words in the right order, or to choose exactly the right words for the situation. He stays where he is beside the chair, and he waits. Sure enough, Aziraphale takes a slow breath and continues. "There was an accident. A car hit a barrier, two people were - well they fell. I didn't think, I should have just miracled them out of the air. Or ensured that they didn't reach the floor at all. But for some reason I -"

Oh, Satan damn it. Crowley knows exactly what Aziraphale did.

"You tried to catch them both," he says through his teeth. He can see it perfectly well in his head. The quick, panicked spread of wings, the split-second measurement of the weight of two humans, along with their speed and position in space. The sudden determination to be where both of them were.

Everyone thinks it's impossible for something to be in two places at the same time. But if you're an occult or ethereal being that knows what you're doing it's possible to give an after-echo of yourself physical mass and the ability to interact with the world around it. To effectively be in two places at the same time. But it puts a tremendous strain on your wings, which end up effectively stretched between the two and powering both. Crowley had experienced it a couple of times and after a few minutes it had felt like being ripped in half. The worst part was that it had continued to feel like that to a lesser extent for a good four hours afterwards. Their corporations weren't meant to be put under so much strain.

"Instinct I suppose." Aziraphale sounds apologetic, though Crowley doesn't know why. He's the one that's probably in excruciating pain right now. "I'd never even considered it before, it's always seemed like such a risky proposition." He shifts forward a touch in his chair and Crowley watches his mouth tighten, watches the way his fingers grip the armrest. His own wings throb in miserable sympathy. "The sort of thing only you'd be reckless enough, or brave enough, to try." The angel's smile is shaky, but it holds an admiration that Crowley absolutely doesn't deserve.

"Don't mistake stupidity for bravery." Crowley's the last person anyone should be copying, quite frankly. The last thing the angel wants to start doing is following his awful fucking example.

Aziraphale breathes the softest noise of amusement, which he regrets instantly judging by the pinch of mouth.

"A few minutes of that will have you feeling like you've been ripped in two." Crowley knows that for a fact, and it's not a memory he wants to dwell on. "Ten minutes will have you wishing you actually had been. How long have you been sitting here?" he asks.

Aziraphale turns his head slowly to look at the clock. It's clear the movement is painful by the way he twitches and forces himself still without getting a good look at the face. Crowley reaches forward, and very carefully draws the angel's pocket watch out of his waistcoat pocket, flips it open.

"It's half past seven," he says gently. "When did you get home?"

"Ah, five, I think, perhaps some time after five." It's not like the angel to be uncertain of the time.

Now that Crowley knows it's not an assault, or a kidnapping, or a trap, he sinks to the table in front of the angel. Aziraphale must be in a bad state because he doesn't even chastise him for it, or for knocking the untidy pile of books and half the chess pieces with an elbow.

"If it's anything like mine then you have a few more hours to go before your wings start remembering how to be one pair again," he tells him, and it's soft enough to almost be an apology for it.

Aziraphale shuts his eyes and moans quietly. As if the thought of spending another two hours this way is unbearable. Crowley's hands flex briefly, as though they're tempted to lift without his consent and curl around the angel's arms, try and ground him in some way. Which isn't going to help, though that doesn't stop him from wanting to.

"I feel like I wasn't as sympathetic as I should have been, when you relayed the story." Aziraphale's brief look is apologetic. "I'm sorry if I in any way dismissed your experience. It really is _very_ unpleasant indeed." He frowns after the words, and at Crowley's raised eyebrows he relents. "It's excruciating," Aziraphale admits, reluctantly. But something about the honesty of it leaves Crowley's shoulders slowly relaxing further out of their tensed hunch.

"A bath helped me, the hot water settled down some of that tearing, jerking feeling. Or it smothered it at least. Enough to make it bearable for a few hours."

Aziraphale seems to consider it. Before exhaling a sigh that's quiet and miserable. "That sounds...that sounds like it would be rather lovely at the moment. And if I could move more than a few inches without feeling as though I'm trying to exist in a variety of incompatible dimensions, then I would absolutely take you up on the suggestion."

Crowley winces at the memory. "I know, it hurts like literal Hell, and I don't want to risk trying to take us both anywhere with your essence all out of sorts. But I can promise you that a bath will help." He thinks about it for a minute and decides on something that the angel's not going to like but he might agree too nonetheless. "How about if I bring the tub downstairs, shift the tables and pop it in the backroom? You wouldn't have to go far."

"You want me to have a bath in the backroom." Aziraphale's voice still sounds pained, but now it also sounds scandalised, and maybe just a little amused at the insane suggestion.

"Why not?" Crowley argues. "It's not like people haven't been sticking their baths in random rooms of the house since baths were invented." Mostly so they could be lazy while they soaked, granted. Humans could be very inventive in the best ways to be lazy. "S'very decadent. You can sit there in your bubbles, propping up a third copy of something you're not all that fond of. I'll deal with the damp, it won't escape past the bath. The heat will make you feel better, I promise."

Aziraphale breathes quietly for a moment, though there's a pained twitch of mouth to every slow rise of his chest. His corporation is clearly unhappy simply keeping itself together without the added complication of subjecting itself to excessive and unnecessary movement. Crowley remembers, he remembers what that felt like.

"I'm not sure I can manage it quite yet." Aziraphale sounds annoyed about it though. He's cultivated his own special sort of stubbornness over the years, and Crowley has found the quiet rebelliousness of it both comforting and terrifying.

"Eh, this is when you need it the most. It's worth it, trust me, and I'll help you, don't worry about it." Crowley pushes himself upright and gets a grip on exactly where the bath upstairs is. Then he makes sure that its ancient plumbing is willing to ignore the laws of physics for an evening. Before he raises his hand and snaps.

The tables in the backroom are neatly arranged in the main area, the sofa pushed hard against the wall, and a large white bathtub with gold accents is now very slowly filling in the centre of the room. The cloud of steam from the taps spreads and rises over the curved porcelain rim, before being carefully pressed back by a seamless stretch of occult power.

"That moisture is terrible for books, you know that," Aziraphale says through a frown. Because of course he's distracted away from his own predicament by the thought of his books being subjected to unexpected damp.

"I told you I'd sort that out, as if I'd let any of your precious babies wrinkle." He's fully expecting the look he gets for that. "Stop stalling." Crowley pushes a table out of the way with a boot and crouches in front of the armchair. "For this part you're going to have to stand, angel." He makes that sound like an apology and in a way it is. Because he knows that almost any movement in space will feel like Aziraphale is trying to stretch himself further.

"I'm going to have to stand, get undressed and then get in the bath," Aziraphale corrects, threads of annoyance coating every word. "All of which feels like rather a lot at the moment." He shoots the bath a look of such desperate longing. "Though I am willing to take suggestions on how I might accomplish that."

Crowley can't help but smile at the angel's rather pouty determination. Which has always been a secret source of amusement and fondness. Not that he'd ever dare tell him.

"I said I'll help you. You won't have to move any more than necessary." Crowley lifts his hands and offers them to the angel. It's such a simple gesture, but their history is a long list of brief touches while passing wine, nudges as they move past each other, and the occasional quick, muffled grip due to drunken unsteadiness or inattention. Crowley can count the number of times they've intentionally reached out and touched each other on one hand.

But the thought of letting that hold settle and linger - that's something they've never done. No matter how much Crowley might have wanted it.

Aziraphale doesn't hesitate though, he takes a deep, fortifying breath and slowly lifts his arms, reaches out to him. He lays his cold, slightly sweaty hands in Crowley's, his strong fingers curling round his palms. Crowley can feel the slithering edges of his pain, can just about see the shape of displaced wrongness where his wings would be on this plane. He knows from experience that there are currently waves of pain and distress rippling through the angel, a sensation something akin to every wing bone being pulled out of alignment twice.

Though Aziraphale's expression is simply one of trust and determination.

Crowley grips his hands back tightly.

"Ok, we're going to go slowly. Use me to pull yourself up. Remember, your wings aren't actually out, no matter what it feels like. Your back isn't as heavy as you think it is. Satan knows I made that mistake a few times and went crashing straight to the floor. Which was where I stayed for a bit."

Aziraphale gives a coughing laugh and then immediately regrets it, all the breath hissing out of him. Crowley waits, watches the angel take a deep breath and then slowly push down with his feet, arms tensing to pull himself out of the chair with a strained and unhappy sound. His face greys a little as he rises, sweet breaking out at his hairline. But he keeps moving, and doesn't stop until he's upright, wobbling shakily, a painful death grip on Crowley's narrow wrists.

"Crowley."

"I've got you, angel, you don't have to worry about that."

"How did you bear this?" Aziraphale asks quietly. "I feel so bloody helpless."

Crowley gives a quick bark of laughter.

"I didn't exactly do it on purpose. The first time was an accident for me. I was just being bloody clever, wanted to know if it could be done. I was lucky I didn't tear myself in half trying something so stupid." He steadies the angel and then slowly lifts Aziraphale hands up to his shoulders, so he can lean some of his weight against Crowley's body. "Shouldn't have told you about it, you'd never have gotten the fool idea to try it yourself."

"Don't blame yourself," Aziraphale tells him, face suddenly all softness under the pain. "I know why you did it."

"Nurgh," Crowley protests, and he hopes that sounds dismissive enough to come across as him not remembering any of the details. Perhaps he shouldn't have shared so much of the story, but it was a long time ago, when everything was new. When the whole world had possibilities. "Alright, I'm going to do your clothes. It's not like I haven't seen your corporation in the altogether before, but if you're feeling prudish we can give you one of those fancy Victorian things, with the sleeves and the little hat." Crowley has to smile and is rewarded with a breathy laugh and a slow head-shake.

"No, I think my corporation can weather a little attention."

Crowley chooses not to comment on that. Or the way Aziraphale's hands squeeze him gently, as if in preparation to be hurt. A streak of forgiveness before he's done a thing.

"Alright, try not to move." Crowley lifts his hand to undo the buttons on Aziraphale's waistcoat, the tiny pearl shapes delicate enough that he's worried they'll pop right off their ancient thread. But the sides eventually part and he starts working on the shirt underneath, hearing the quiet, strained breathing as the angel struggles to remain standing without pain. "You don't have to move, just hold yourself up and I'll do the rest."

"Really, you shouldn't have to. I think I'm capable of - of -"

Crowley shushes him. "S'not like you haven't helped me. Remember the twelfth century, when I ended up in that farmhouse with that nasty sword gash across my chest. You had to stitch it up because there were too many angels in the area paying attention."

"Yes, and I did a terrible job of it." Aziraphale remembers with a frown, adjusting his weight the tiniest bit. "I left the wound horribly puckered, and felt awful about it for years afterwards."

"Don't be stupid, it was fine." Crowley hadn't cared about neatness. The angel's stitching had been quick and efficient and so impossibly gentle. He'd never been touched like that before - and never since. "It stopped bleeding didn't it? Which was the important part, since I'd already spilled a portion of it all over myself at that point. I couldn't do it myself and you did it for me, didn't you?"

"Of course I did, I didn't want you to discorporate." It's a gentle admonishment, as if he should know as much by now. Of course, Aziraphale was always going to help him, what a ridiculous comment. If Crowley questioned it, he'd just protest that he was an angel, of course he's going to help. But they both know far too well that Heaven is more likely to praise obedience and efficiency over kindness.

They don't deserve him up there, they never have. Crowley doesn't either, but at least he knows it, at least he's willing to try.

"See, fair's fair." Crowley gently works the waistcoat and shirt down Aziraphale's arms and draws them both free, before laying them on the sofa behind him. The old-fashioned catch on the trousers is easy enough to open, the underwear simple enough to slide down his thighs.

Crowley forces himself to be as professional as possible. Even though he's had more than a few thoughts about taking the angel's clothes off - more than a few over the last four or five millennia. Granted, the circumstances he may have idly thought up in his head had never involved Aziraphale being defenceless and in horrible pain.

"Can you step out of them?"

"Most likely," Aziraphale says, though he doesn't sound happy about it. He takes a deep breath. "Give me a moment."

Crowley considers the angel's soft, pale curves, which are clammy and chilled, still sweating unnaturally. His corporation really doesn't know what to do with any of the sensations it's experiencing, since there are no nerve endings or attachments, or even real understanding of the parts which are currently screaming their distress.

"Do you trust me?" Crowley asks quietly.

Aziraphale looks at him, mouth working for a moment, before something in his eyes surrenders, stretches open into an expression that Crowley's not sure he deserves.

"Yes," he says. "Of course I do."

"Right." Crowley slowly winds an arm around Aziraphale's back, bends forward until he can carefully curl the other around the back of his plush thighs.

"Crowley!" It's shocked and faintly protesting. Aziraphale realising immediately what he intends to do.

Crowley lifts the angel in one gentle movement. He can feel the gasp and the instinctive tense as spine and shoulders are shifted by the slow but dramatic change of position. Aziraphale's arms reach up instinctively, fingers tangling and gripping in Crowley's shirt. He gives a hoarse moan of pain, which goes all the way through Crowley's chest like a physical blow.

"It's alright," he tells him, though the reassurance doesn't hurt him to hear either. "It's alright, you're in one piece, I promise."

"Ah, there are several pieces of me trying to dispute that fact," Aziraphale says breathlessly. But he tightens his grip and leans into him, lets Crowley take his weight, head tipping gently to press against Crowley's temple. Crowley can feel the warmth of it against his face, the softness of the angel's hair against his skin.

It's five steps to the bath, though it could have been a thousand miles and Crowley wouldn't have protested. He lowers Aziraphale slowly into the bath, arms plunging into the silky heat of the water, soaking his shirt to the biceps. He makes sure it's as gentle a movement as he can manage, and he doesn't let his arms release the angel's weight until he's settled against the back of the tub. Though Aziraphale does give a surprised hiss of pain as his back is jostled again before the bath curves around him. The cold, hard porcelain and the hot water are a series of surprising sensations in just a few seconds.

Crowley sinks to his knees beside him, wet hand curling round Aziraphale's tense forearm, the water soaking his shirt running from him in trails and drips, but it disappears before it reaches the floor.

"It's alright, give the hot water a moment to work. Getting in was always the worst part with me as well."

Aziraphale's breathy murmur of agreement drags guilt all the way through Crowley, but he knows it will get better, he knows this will help. He's been through this three times before - and he'd go through it again in Aziraphale's place if he could.

"I have no idea how you managed this all on your own. I've never felt so much like an invalid," Aziraphale gets out in short bursts.

Crowley hums his agreement. He remembers the vulnerability, and the sense of betrayal. Most of all, he remembers the way his corporation had suddenly seemed to be an awkward and badly made stretch of sharp sticks and weight and pain, one he would have left if he could. He shuffles around behind the angel - claims a space where Aziraphale is vulnerable without question or protest - pushing up now-dry sleeves and gently laying a hand on the sloped back of the bath.

"I think I can help," he offers. Before he can convince himself that it's a stupid idea. Before he slips back into the careful orbit of Aziraphale's space that he's occupied for so long, giving him the distance he's always needed. "I mean, I think pressure will help. If you let me?"

The angel gives a low, cracked sigh, he seems beyond protest at this point and just nods very carefully.

"Yes, of course, anything."

Crowley puts his hands on him. He curves his palms round the angel's shoulders, which are still clammy and chilled. He feels the way they're both held in a stiff, protective half-lift, shielding the wings that aren't there from further harm. There's a tremble under the skin. Crowley lets his hands slowly spread and press outwards to the curves of Aziraphale's shoulders. The corporation knows that the angel has been injured, knows that there is _pain_ but without any point of reference it's simply panicking, finding it everywhere and nowhere. Crowley very carefully puts pressure into the slow pull along the shoulder, and the muscle resists, twitches and strains against his coaxing, it's impossibly tight from neck to arm.

The angel grips the edge of the bath with a pale hand, and he's clearly holding in a groan of miserable agony, air punching through his teeth in bursts.

"It'll get better, I promise, the tightness is just making it worse." Crowley quietly hates himself in the pained silence, but he doesn't stop. He knows the muscle needs to relax. No matter what Aziraphale's corporation thinks, his wings are safely tucked away and in one piece. They're just vibrating at different frequencies to each other and to his body. Stretched too thin, spread too wide. The material world doesn't work like the ethereal plane.

"Yes, fine, keep going, I trust you." Aziraphale sounds breathless, but he submits to Crowley's wisdom, to his experiences. Part of him wants to tell the angel not to do such a stupid thing. That he's a mess of terrible choices, desperately shoved down fury, and wicked desires -

He snaps the thought away and concentrates on the slow push of his thumbs into the tension of Aziraphale's shoulder.

"Your corporation will realise in a while that it's not actually damaged," Crowley shares, if only to say something. He repeats the movement he'd started with, hand slowly moving from neck to shoulder in one slow glide that increases in pressure. He can feel the muscle underneath, the shape of it tight and strong under his fingers. "Which should cut the discomfort a little."

"Discomfort," Aziraphale repeats, his tone perfectly conveying how ludicrously insufficient he finds that word to be.

"The screaming instability in there then," Crowley corrects, and the angel doesn't seem to mind the grumpy tone to his voice. If anything it seems to comfort him. "I'm trying not to make it sound as if you've been torn in two."

"That's certainly what it feels like," Aziraphale mutters. "Perhaps honesty would be more helpful at this point?"

"Don't know, never met him," Crowley replies.

The laugh is breathy and pained but Crowley can feel the tense muscle of Aziraphale's back loosen a little under his slow attention. The way it dips and gives under the push and squeeze of his hands. Crowley has never massaged anyone before. He'd only ever had it done to him once, in Ancient Greece, by a nervous, hard-fingered human who'd felt too much of Crowley through his skin and left the room wide-eyed and trembling. But whatever the angel feels from him, it seems to calm him.

"I don't think you've ever lied to me," Aziraphale says quietly.

Crowley makes a dubious noise. Because that's not strictly true.

"Refusing to share things you don't wish me to know doesn't count," Aziraphale reminds him.

That probably deserves an even more dubious noise but Crowley suspects he's used up his quota for the night. He switches to the other shoulder, much to Aziraphale's hissing annoyance. Crowley hates it, even as his hands move in ways that are slow enough to be indulgent if he lets them. For all that they've been adversaries as long as they've existed, Crowley has never hurt the angel, not like this. Of all the times he might have wished to put hands on him, all the ways he might have wished to finally touch him - Aziraphale's soft noises of pain had never been a part of his fantasies.

"Thank you," Aziraphale says, as if he can somehow feel how much Crowley is punishing himself for this. "I appreciate your help."

"If I'd been with you, you never would have had to do this." Crowley feels compelled to point out, not without irritation.

"Crowley, I can't expect you to always be there to save the day."

Crowley's hands slow their movement on Aziraphale's back, spread between his shoulder blades, looking narrow and thin, oddly sharp on the angel's pale skin.

"No matter how much you might want to," Aziraphale finishes. "You can't be there all the time."

He could.

He would.

All Aziraphale would have to do was ask.

He sets his other hand on the angel's back, coaxes him to carefully sit up in the water so he can work his fingers either side of his spine, much to his hissing unhappiness.

"S'your own fault for not thinking to call me, you know where I am. We're a side of two now, calling each other for help is kind of the point. I'm annoyed that you didn't, I'm annoyed that I got a text two hours late."

Aziraphale doesn't answer that, which leaves Crowley staring unhappily at the delicate curls of hair at the top of his neck, now damp from the water. The thought of touching them with his fingers, of feeling the soft warmth of them, is almost overwhelming. He gentles his hands across Aziraphale's shoulder blades, which tense under every slow drag of his thumb. This is the most they've touched for millennia, the most Aziraphale has ever allowed Crowley to touch him. His bare skin is smooth, warming slowly from the water and Crowley's hands. The muscles underneath it are strong and capable, for all their tightness. Aziraphale's always been strong underneath.

"I wish I could have come for you," Aziraphale says eventually. "When you were hurt. I wish I could have known, like you always do. You always know."

Crowley's hands slow, the heel of his palm no longer pressing down. It simply lays flat against the angel's back where Aziraphale's wing would curve out and unfold, spreading itself into reality. If he concentrated, he'd be able to feel the thrum underneath, that ethereal echo of static against his palm.

"Aziraphale, you've saved me just as many times -"

The angel slowly pulls himself higher in the bath, a strained noise of displeasure easing out between his teeth.

"Yes, but when it was dire, when I couldn't help but know. You always manage to know when - when I'm desperate for company, or when I'm having difficulty with the demands placed upon me. Even when I'm simply dreadfully lonely and need someone to talk to who understands."

"I check in occasionally," Crowley admits, hands slipping to rest on the back of the bath. "Every once in a while. I bore easily don't I, having a quick look at what you're doing seems like something to do? I've never minded lending a hand."

"Every once in a while?" Aziraphale doesn't make that sound like a question, and there's a strange, disbelieving lilt to it that Crowley doesn't want to touch. Because of course it isn't every once in a while, of course it's all the time. The angel's not supposed to know that though. Or if he does he's not supposed to admit it. They're not supposed to admit it. It's all they had for years, things they couldn't acknowledge, or admit to, or feel. It's the way they've always done things.

"You want some tea?" Crowley stands, and it's an abrupt unfolding into verticality. "You could probably do with the sugar, for your corporation's shock. I'll get you one."

Aziraphale's face is tipped upwards, he's frowning at him, and it almost looks hurt. But eventually he nods. "Tea would be lovely, thank you."

Crowley leaves the angel in the gently steaming water and heads into the small kitchen. He doesn't bother using a miracle, he flicks the kettle on and waits instead, gathering a cup and the milk - the angel doesn't normally take sugar but it's probably going to help his corporation right now. Crowley remembers that it hadn't just been pain. There were the strange cold shivers, the unpleasant gnawing, and the repeated panicked tensing he'd gone through himself, while his body tried to work out what exactly had gone wrong. It feels as close to shock as makes no difference. Treating it the same can't hurt, surely?

The angel shouldn't have to feel guilty about not knowing every time Crowley was having an awful time. He wasn't fit company for anyone on his worst days, and as much as he might have wanted the angel around - wanted him to show up with dark chocolate, a few scathing opinions about his latest customers, and that mint tea he'd never admit to liking but Aziraphale just knew somehow. As much as Crowley would have wanted that….

He stares at the noisy kettle.

Maybe it would have been too much for him.

The idea that Aziraphale was watching him just as closely, that he was paying attention to his moods, just as Crowley was, noticing the way heavy rain made the angel anxious and lonely. The way the constant miracles of flu season could leave him run-down and despondent. The way Gabriel's occasional random check-ins always had the angel see-sawing between fretful obedience and drunken irritation.

The possibility that Aziraphale had been thinking about him half as often -

The water boils and he pours it without thinking about anything at all.

Aziraphale has sunk a little in the water, leaning back and stretching out a touch while he'd been gone. As if to find a more comfortable position to wait for him. His eyes are shut and Crowley takes a moment to guiltily look at him, at the way his pale hair is curling in the steam, the spread of eyelashes across his cheeks, the soft curves of his shoulders, pulled up slightly to balance his arms, now set on either side of the bath. His chest is rounded and inviting, the hair there wet from the steam, and his stomach is a gentle curve half-submerged in the water -

Crowley takes himself back to the angel before his eyes betray him, careful not to spill the tea. Aziraphale's watching him before he's kneeling beside the bath, before he's handing over the cup and helping Aziraphale wrap his hand around it.

"Don't worry if you spill. I can fix it." He makes it sound dismissive, something about the moment is strangely fragile and he's unwilling to submit to it.

"It's terribly vexing to be incapable of performing miracles," Aziraphale admits. "I've never liked the vulnerability of it, and I think Gabriel knew it. Which is why he chose so many restrictions as punishment."

Crowley spares him an expression that perfectly conveys what he thinks of Gabriel's opinion. They both know that there's a difference between being incapable and not being allowed. Though he'd known the angel to argue the opposite when Heaven had come down hard.

"Eh, never said it was impossible, just told you not to try, you'll feel it if you do, trust me. I wasn't exactly somewhere safe the first time it happened." That was a miserable excruciating memory to revisit. They didn't have the luxury of forgetting their pain the way humans did, not a second of it, and sometimes Crowley feels like he's full to the brim. "I had to move myself, and I didn't -"

He stops talking. Because Aziraphale's warm, wet palm is suddenly pressed to the side of Crowley's face. He can feel the water in his hair, trickling at his jaw, but mostly he can feel the angel's hand.

"Promise me you'll come to me if anything happens, now that we're in this together."

Crowley can't do anything for a moment but wheeze out an incoherent sound, something that doesn't provide any useful information at all. Which clearly isn't good enough for the angel.

"Yeah, I mean I will, you too, obviously."

Aziraphale smiles, and Crowley likes to think his hand slides away reluctantly, leaving his face damp and prickling. He lets the angel drink his tea, in careful, wincing mouthfuls, occasionally adjusting his position ever so slightly with an annoyed sigh.

Crowley sits against the side of the bath with one arm flung easily over it, fingers touching the water, bare inches away from the lush curve of Aziraphale's thighs. The angel has them parted slightly and Crowley can see his rounded hips, the heaviness of his balls and the soft line of his dick lying in pale hair. He admires him, in the absent way someone does for a well-loved thing they rarely see. But he also admires him in the way a lover might, if he was afforded such intimacy freely. The shape of him becomes something sweetly affecting, a need that flushes blood through the skin and leaves warmth pooling in his own body.

Crowley forces himself to focus on the water; on that lightly bubbled surface, affecting a relaxed air of concerned companionship.

The clock says it's been almost an hour.

"How are you feeling?" he asks.

Aziraphale hands him the empty cup.

"It comes and goes in waves, though the water is helping, it feels almost something for the pain to break against, leaving a heat behind. Not to mention your manipulation of the muscles, which seems to have relaxed some of the worst of it. Thank you."

Crowley grunts a noise. He's getting better at taking thanks, though it still feels like something he shouldn't be allowed.

"You'll know when it's wearing off, everything will feel tight, there'll be waves of stiffness replacing the pain, then you'll have pins and needles all over, not pleasant either that part." The first time it happened to Crowley he hadn't known how long it would last, hadn't known whether it was something permanent he'd done to himself, just one more punishment that would leave him crippled with pain for years - or forever.

"That sounds wholly preferable to what I'm dealing with now," Aziraphale says thinly. The fact that he offers a genuine complaint about his physical discomfort at all feels like the biggest indicator that he's suffering, and Crowley hates it. There's nothing he can do though, there's no way he can help - no, scratch that, there might be a way he can help.

He stretches upright and heads in the direction of the shelves. "What you need is a distraction, something to focus on while you're waiting. How about if I read you something?"

Aziraphale looks up at him, the steam has flushed his cheeks a warm pink and his hair is now a series of softly appealing curls. Crowley turns around and drags a book out at random, just to have something else to put his hands on. To have something else to look at.

"Eh, Celtic folklore and mythology, how's that?" he asks over his shoulder.

"Crowley." Aziraphale's frown looks almost upset. "I know how uncomfortable reading is for you. The last thing I'd want to do is force you to give yourself a headache."

"Forcing? Who's forcing? I offered didn't I?" He lets the book fall open, flutters through the pages. "I know how attached you are to your books. There's no chance on earth you're going to hold one over the water while your grace works on putting you back together the right way. I'll read it to you. You'll have to put up with my rambling voice making a mess of the words though. And my Celtic is a bit rusty - there was a particular saint that made it pretty bloody clear I wasn't welcome in Ireland."

Aziraphale winces, and Crowley honestly doesn't know if it's his own discomfort or sympathy for what a shitshow that had been. The angel had covered for him big time there, and he was still stupidly grateful hundreds of years later. Not that he'd said so in so many words, or any words. He didn't have to, the angel knew.

"Though if you think I'll make a hash of it just say so. I'll fetch you some crappy paperback you can waterlog to your heart's content -"

"Crowley, I can't think of anything I would enjoy more than for you to read something to me," Aziraphale admits, with a soft sort of fondness that Crowley is blaming on the hot water. "And not just to avoid any book meeting such a terrible fate. Though I'm feeling a little less like moving about will shatter me into pieces, so don't mind if I fidget."

Crowley tells himself the angel isn't just being nice. He genuinely does want to hear Crowley read him something. He takes the book to the armchair, throws his legs up over the arm of it and lets the thing fall open at a random page.

Aziraphale stays mostly quiet, there's a long stretch of time where he shuts his eyes and leans back, smiling faintly, save for the occasional wince when he shifts position. Crowley splits his attention between the words and the angel, taking breaks to comment on the pictures, or correct the history. Reading was, as Aziraphale had quite rightly pointed out, not always easy for him. He doesn't have the right eyes for it. Everything is a little too sharp and still, and it all tends to smear together if he concentrates too long. His eyes constantly searching for heat and movement and changes of depth and finding nothing.

But he can do this, he can read the angel something while he lays in the hot water and slowly finds his way whole again. He even puts on a few voices, that have the angel huffing quiet noises of amusement. He only stops when Aziraphale pulls himself upright suddenly, water streaming from his shoulders and chest, hands lifted to catch the sides of the bath. Crowley snaps the book shut, leaning forward.

"Aziraphale."

"It's alright, everything just tightened up, but the pain is - the pain is not so bad, there's just -"

"A stiffness." Crowley sets the book down as he watches Aziraphale nod. He pushes off the chair and heads over to the bath again, giving the miracle to absorb the damp air and moisture a bit of a boost as he watches trails of it slink over the edge of the bath from Aziraphale's fingers. "Yes, that's normal, that's a good sign."

"I feel like I need to stretch my wings," Aziraphale says uncertainly. "Is it safe, do you think?"

Crowley leans back at the words, as if he might do it immediately. "Yeah, if you feel like you need to bring 'em out that usually means they've worked out how to exist in one place again. Give 'em a bit of a stretch."

"Oh thank Heavens." Aziraphale shifts slightly forward in the bath, pale back streaming warm water as his corporation gives, allows the expanse of his wings to slip free and become material, become part of him, spreading upwards and outwards, fanning open in the space that Crowley hastily makes for them in the back room. They fill it immediately, with an expanse of white feathers, and luminescence. The faint static charge humming in the air as they tilt gently upwards and catch the light. Aziraphale gives a brief quiet groan of protest, which abruptly transforms into a relieved sigh, and then finishes as a sound of such surprised pleasure that Crowley wonders if he should be in the same room.

Aziraphale's wings give one slow stretch, before contracting and then expanding again. Then moving in a slow push against the air currents, as if to shake the last of the stiffness from them.

"Oh. That's rather -" Water splashes as Aziraphale moves, one knee drawing up and settling against the side. "It feels like I've had them folded for centuries."

Crowley takes a moment to breathe in the static charge of ethereal grace, to feel the faint brush of air that's fanned towards him, before he's sliding back on the carpet towards the door, drying his hands on his jeans.

"I'll let you stretch for a minute. Get all the kinks out." Satan's tits, word choices, he tells himself.

Aziraphale lifts his wings again and Crowley watches his shoulders slowly tilt back, watches the blades beneath the skin stretch and shift. The muscle moving in a way that speaks of a strength designed to snap those wings into action at any moment. The connection between his incorporeal true form and his solid corporation is a complex and beautiful twist of energy and matter that happens in the hard, exposed joints of his wings. Crowley has never seen them from so close and the vulnerability of it leaves him stepping back, instinctively, as if he's not to be trusted. When all he wants to do is touch, and promise.

"It's not painful, though there is something of a numbness there. As if they're wrapped in fabric, or deep underwater. It's very disconcerting."

Aziraphale lifts his head to regard Crowley, where he's now standing out of range, wishing he had his glasses with him, so he could watch the way Aziraphale's feathers flutter and straighten, splay out in a wave of ethereal essence. They're beautiful, how could they not be, they feel like the angel.

"Perhaps you could - it did seem to help when you were coaxing the muscle into something a bit less tense. I don't suppose..." The angel cautiously offers that pout. The one Crowley has never been able to refuse, though he's leveraged it in some truly ridiculous situations.

But this - this isn't an extra slice of lemon meringue, or a trip across the continent, or a book signing that he was going to be out of the country for.

This was Aziraphale's _wings_.

"N'angel, your wings are out now, it's a bit..." Crowley reaches for any word that's not 'erotic' in his head. But there really isn't a better option. Once your wings were out everything at your back became significantly more sensitive. The corporation just by proximity became more divine. Aziraphale like this is very different from a few moments ago, his angelic essence will protect him instinctively against threats - they should have done at the very beginning, really, but instead he'd let one curve over and shield Crowley from the rain, as if he was simply another of earth's creatures that Aziraphale was responsible for protecting. Heaven had tried to drum in otherwise, but the angel's wings had never gotten the message and something about that left Crowley helpless not to come back, over and over.

The thought of him trying to massage around Aziraphale's wings, of rubbing his hands at the base of them dragging his fingers so close to where they slide free - where corporation becomes _Aziraphale_ in his purest form. Crowley's not sure there's any way to do that platonically. Aziraphale might as well ask him to finger him _platonically._ Which he forces himself not to think about, bites into the thought and drags it to pieces.

There's a long pause.

"You're right, of course -" Aziraphale says hastily, hands slipping off the edges of the bath. "Of course you are, that's incredibly presumptuous of me. It slipped my mind for a moment how - ah - intimate -" He cuts himself off, face pinched as if he'd said something awful, something he wasn't allowed - and the familiarity of that expression makes something in Crowley's chest clench hard. "I can't expect you to fuss all evening, you probably have things to do. I'm sure I can handle it from here."

Aziraphale moves, as if to rise from the water, elbows still wobbling.

"Nnnrgh." Crowley hurriedly wipes his hands on his jeans, though they're not damp at all, and stumbles forward. To stop the angel leaving, to make him stay, and his mouth takes over completely, says words without letting them slip through his brain. "No, it's - it's fine, I can do that. I can do your shoulders, try and wake them up a bit. If you let me know when you can - ah, when you can feel them again?"

Aziraphale is quiet for a moment.

"You really don't have to. If you don't want to." But he slowly sinks in the water again as he says it.

"No, I want to." Crowley wonders if that's too much, if it's closer to an admission than a grudging agreement. "It's fine, angel."

He settles himself round the back of the bath, feels the air move as Aziraphale's wings gently spread outwards, moving out of the way for him, then lowering so Crowley's hands can tentatively settle on the warm, rounded curves of his shoulders. Though it seems an entirely different sensation now he can feel the gentle flex and stretch beneath the skin, where the muscles of his back are trying to shift in rhythm with his wings. Crowley can feel the edges of the angel's primaries moving the air around him. He can sense the static charge of them. The chilled ozone of Heaven a breath away from his face. The years have taken the sting out of the memory, turned the bite of it into something that reminds him far more of Aziraphale than anything that came before.

He ignores it as best as he can - a laughable thought quite frankly - as he slides one hand up the back of Aziraphale's neck, smoothing upwards and then out to the side, stretching his warm skin as he gently pulls, soothing the muscle beneath. The tension is mostly gone, the angel gently swaying under the attention, though the sensation must be different, because Aziraphale's skin is now twitching and fluttering under the pressure. 

Crowley can feel so much more of him now. If he'd dared to reach a hand out in Eden, this is the angel he would have met, this ripple of divinity, this luminous warmth that he can almost feel the shape of. The way Aziraphale's whole being rings gently in a way that wants to vibrate against his own essence. Though Crowley seriously doubts that harmony would be pleasant to listen to.

He squeezes the back of the angel's neck, and tries his best to ignore it.

Aziraphale makes soft, pleased noises under the movements, gentle sighs and long moans as he relaxes and unknots beneath Crowley's hands. Even slowly easing back into him as if to encourage his thumbs to press deeper, to dig in and find the last aching spots of discomfort. He's leaning into every push, giving the occasional sighing hiss that sounds like relief rather than pain now. The skin out of the bath is dry, and Crowley can hear the soft slap of water gently breaking on the angel's lower stomach, though he can't see the front of him from this position. It's probably for the best, his pulse is fast enough as it is. The distraction of Aziraphale's bare, wet skin, slowly rocking back and forth, water lapping at his thighs and stomach. He forces himself to stay in one rhythm, careful and steady. He ignores all the soft noises the angel offers, ignores the murmurs of his name that seem determined to let him know he's doing a good job, the breathy sighs that aren't words but sounds of pleasure. Knocked out of him by Crowley's hands.

He drifts in it all for a while.

The wings lift out of the way when he moves down and Crowley holds his breath, fights not to breathe them in even as they whisper past his face. He mustn't reach out and touch the smooth wing joints, or the small delicate feathers that dust along the base. Though he thinks that Aziraphale can't help but feel his breath there, he's so close, Crowley imagines that he would feel it himself - on his darker feathers, splashes of ink on hard, angular joints. Aziraphale's own wings are pristine, they were never damaged after all, would that make them more sensitive, or less. Either way, they're soft and strong and perfect and Crowley can't help but wonder if anyone else has ever touched the angel like this. If anyone else has ever been allowed to smooth their hands between his wings. Or to press them inside, touch the feathers, feel the thrum of his grace.

But he can't think that, he mustn't. This is about trust, this is about the angel's vulnerability, it's not about him - it's not about what he wants, and he furiously stamps down on his own feelings. Which is easy after all this time.

He massages the solid curves of Aziraphale's shoulders, the slope of his neck, the strong trapezius muscles. The world takes on a fuzzy, faraway softness. All Crowley is aware of is the smoothing pass of his hands above, between and below the wings while they sway and shift and brush teasingly at his hair. He can smell them, if he slid his tongue free he'd wager he would taste the static of them in the air, that saltwater charge of ethereal energy.

Aziraphale.

Pure and undiluted Aziraphale.

Crowley feels as if he's drowning, as though the water has taken him already. He could have been touching the angel for hours, or for no time at all.

He's so hard in his jeans it feels like pain, though he's trying desperately not to be. He's spent so long carefully not touching that for a second he doesn't remember why. Those white wings swinging gently into every squeeze of his hand, feathers rustling when he presses down with his thumbs. The whole world is ringing and every inch of Aziraphale feels like it's offering itself up to Crowley. In this quiet moment he can pretend that this beautiful, impossible, stubborn, infuriating angel is his. That he'd chosen Crowley.

The wings stretch back, knock against the back of his hands, and Crowley forgets for a moment why he's not supposed to touch.

"Aziraphale." Crowley's fingers close carefully on the joints of his wings, feeling the heat of him through that thin, delicate skin, the pretence of bone and muscle, the softness of pure down feathers. But underneath he can feel the sparking warmth of Aziraphale's own essence, the bright, holy centre of him. It's an intimacy he never expected to be allowed. But those strong bones unfold beneath his fingers, press into his palms as Aziraphale's wings open wider for him with a shaking sigh.

The angel says his name, and it sounds so far away.

Crowley wants to lean in, he wants to press his face to Aziraphale's feathers, he wants to lay his mouth there and breathe him in, let his corporation drown in the taste of him. Let the blasphemy of it core him out entirely, leaving nothing but Aziraphale behind. He's aware, absently, of Aziraphale slipping from his loosened grasp - and he thinks he's dared too much, that he was too greedy, too demanding, every shrivelled, desperate part of him on display.

There's a splash of water, a pad of dripping feet on the antique rug. A warm, wet hand curves under his jaw and tilts his head back.

"Crowley, open your eyes please."

He does. How could he not?

Aziraphale is right in front of him, the softness of him naked and wet, still streaming water that dissipates before it ever touches the floor. His stomach is a rounded curve above the plump line of his stiff cock where it's jutting surprisingly from pale hair. His balls are full and heavy, wet hair curls against plush thighs.

Crowley loses all the air in his chest.

"Aziraphale -" Whatever else he might have said is broken in half by the slow drift of a thumb across his mouth.

"My dear, you have been quietly pouring your feelings into the room for two hours."

Crowley's mouth twitches, a protesting, embarrassed noise already half formed in his throat. But Aziraphale's wings fan out and stretch above him, and he simply breathes out instead.

"I didn't mean to," he says at last.

"I wish you would," Aziraphale counters. "I wish one of us would have the courage to say something, to do something. Since we seem to be circling the same wild hope, like the old fools we are."

"Hrngh." Crowley can't make words to that, can't wrangle with what it exposes about him, what it suggests about Aziraphale. That's too much all at once, too much to be forced to admit to, he can barely feel it all and still hope to have a conversation.

"It was very selfish of me to let it go on so long," Aziraphale continues, as if he can't feel how badly unprepared for this Crowley is. "But I hoped that -" He stops briefly when Crowley raises a numb hand and covers Aziraphale's own, where it's tentatively holding his face. "We've been free for quite a while now, but I wasn't sure if your feelings ran towards desire."

Crowley's breathy puff of laughter is too incriminating, more words feel unnecessary, but he can't help himself.

"Didn't want to presume, for you," he argues in turn, and if his voice isn't entirely steady there's no one to hear but Aziraphale. "But you've never let me touch so much, didn't expect you to want that, sort of made me confused about what I could have, what we were."

What were they? What did Aziraphale want them to be? Crowley just needed to know, so he could give it to him.

Aziraphale's wings stretch, and the light shifts until Crowley feels illuminated in a way that's entirely new, and manages to steal all the breath from him.

"For years you were the thing I wanted and I couldn't have, and I'm afraid it became a habit, the silence, the restraint - we were finally free to be whatever we wanted but I was still a little afraid, in case I broke what we'd won. Because I loved what we'd won very much, and the risk of losing you...it was too much to be brave."

"As if you could ever lose me," Crowley says hoarsely. Realising with a delirious sort of surprise that the shape of Aziraphale's want was the same as his own. "Don't you know that by now?"

Aziraphale's smile trembles at the edges. "I never even made you a promise, I was too afraid."

"They would have killed us." There's a thickness in Crowley's voice that he can't shake out. "I understood."

The angel's hand slips behind his head and draws him in, and Crowley finds his face pressed to the wet skin of Aziraphale's hip, the smell of him so close he can taste it. Damp fingers drag backwards in his hair, tug gently until his head tips back, until he can look up the soft hills of Aziraphale's body, wet and spotted with droplets of water, to his ever-changing eyes.

"Didn't we say that we were on the same side now?"

"Angel, that doesn't mean you have to do anything. You've always been enough for me."

Aziraphale smiles down at him. "I was rather preparing the same speech for you if it came up." Nails scratch in Crowley's hair and he turns his face, breathes Aziraphale in, mouth pressed helplessly to the soft skin over his hip bone, so tempted to lay his teeth there, to press his tongue to the flesh. To taste the parts of the angel he's never seen.

Crowley wants so much, but he wants to keep this moment too, he thinks he may have gone mad.

"Can I, Aziraphale, let me -" He shifts so slowly, trailing messy kisses on wet skin until his mouth touches hair, his temple brushing soft-smooth skin, stiff and blood-hot. The angel sighs agreement and cups his hand around the back of Crowley's head, fingers threading into red hair. He encourages him to move back, cheek gliding along the line of the angel's wet cock until the head bumps his lips, and Crowley opens his mouth for it.

It's heavy on his tongue, wide and hot and he sinks down on a noise he didn't know he could make, and would be ashamed to admit to later.

Aziraphale makes a soft, gasping noise from above that shudders through him, his free hand reaching out to curl around the bath, the other moving in Crowley's hair, sliding more between his fingers and gripping tightly. The sting is beautiful, stealing a breath of movement, encouraging him to keep sinking.

"Crowley, Crowley, please."

Crowley hums enthusiastic agreement, pulling a jerk of startled delight out of the angel. But of course, anything that Aziraphale wants, anything he asks for -

The whole length of him is hard in Crowley's mouth, the taste of it viscerally human, but he knows that if he sinks deep enough, if he tongued the sensitive head, if he pressed his face into the soft hair and let Aziraphale push into his throat. He knows he'd find the angel beneath. He sucks, slow and gentle at first, because this is a gift and he's going to savour it.

He's brave enough to reach up, get his hands on Aziraphale's hips and pull him in, encouraging him deeper still, into the hollow of his throat.

The hand tightens, and the angel gasps. "Oh, you beautiful thing you."

Crowley opens his eyes, looks up, and he's not sure how he's supposed to cope with this. With this damp, naked angel with flushed cheeks and curled hair, looking down at him as though he's something important. Crowley hasn't known how to do anything but love him for a very long time.

Aziraphale's hands fall to his shoulders, fingers curling in fabric and then pushing at his shirt. "Take this off, Crowley, please take this off for me."

Crowley's tugging at the buttons before Aziraphale finishes speaking, frustrated when they choose to cling stubbornly where they've been stitched. He eventually just snaps the whole thing free - snaps everything free, leaves himself kneeling nude at the angel's feet, his wet mouth moving slick and obscene on his cock. Aziraphale's wings go high, smack a bookshelf and Crowley sees two feathers take to the air on their own and drift gently down. Before the angel's pulling both wings forward around him, pressing in, sinking deep, past the clutch of Crowley's throat, all the way into him.

Everything inside him is heavy and hot, fluttering in pleasure at every sound the angel makes.

He can't, he can't -

One hand is clawed round Aziraphale's hip, but the other drops to grip himself in a slick fist, where he's a stiff demand of pounding blood and arousal, fingers smearing lubricant everywhere as he squirms and pushes through his own tightly clenched fingers. The angel encourages him down and then draws back, lets him suck at the head - his tongue longer every time, squeezing tight at the length of him, and all the while Aziraphale is talking to him in low, desperate tones.

"You don't know how much I wanted you. The backroom always smells of you, _always_. You drove me mad, and I was so afraid, and I still imagined you like this. Just like this. Just for me. I wondered if you would like this, or if you would want me at your feet instead. If you'd want me in your bed, if you'd want me with you, beside you, around you - oh - inside you. "

Crowley is shaking and he can't stop, fingers clawing at the angel's softness as he swallows him deep and moans a promise that he did, of course he did, all the fucking time. He will fit their corporations together in any way the angel desires, every way the angel desires.

"You furious thing, I have loved your face for so long and you are strong and brave and beautiful, every piece of you."

Crowley's throat is so full it hurts, a ragged squeezing pain that he lets Aziraphale open and push through. His eyes feel raw and wet, but he's too full to make the angel stop. He's crammed so tight with impossible, painful need that his whole body is quivering with desire, feeling the spread of white wings and the slow drift of air that they fan down, that rushes over his skin, like ozone and sunlight.

He's burning up.

He sucks harder, bobs his head faster even as his own hand squeezes tighter, jerks himself harder. He's going to come like this, between his own spread knees, over the angel's feet while his mouth works him all the way to orgasm. Aziraphale is going to come in his mouth - making those beautiful, desperate noises that Crowley has never heard before - and he's never wanted anything more.

He's shaking, eyes watering, and he doesn't know how to stop, he just needs it, he needs all of it. And then there's a hand sliding on the back of his neck, gripping tight as Aziraphale gives a low moan and curves over him, fingers stretching down to dig at his upper shoulders.

"Let me see, please let me see, let me _touch_ you."

Crowley has no control over the wretched moan that falls out of him. He knows exactly what the angel wants, and his throat gives a long, desperate squeeze around the angel's cock, helplessly impaled as his own black wings push out, spread up and forward into the curve of Aziraphale's body, the edges brushing hard and sweet across the angel's skin, feeling the rush of his breath and the soft gasp of his name, as his fingers lift to dig deep into Crowley's feathers.

"Oh, you beautiful thing. You have no idea how long I've wanted to fold my wings with yours."

It's so shockingly intimate, so unexpected and honest that Crowley loses any hope of self-control. The image of it alone leaves him digging his nails into Aziraphale's hip and pushing his mouth down, feeling pleasure core all the way through him. His cock jerks in his grip, come spilling in messy streaks across Aziraphale's feet and the carpet and his own trembling fingers as he moans around the angel's cock, even as it pushes through his lips quick and greedy, fills him all the way deep - twitching and spilling warmth down his throat. He's moaning through it, feeling fingers tighten deliciously in his feathers, the soft snap of cold ozone, all static angel charge in the burning core of him. The world, for an extended stretch of time, is dizzy and blissful and perfect.

Until Aziraphale takes a gasping breath and slips free.

His cock is soft and wet, still dripping slightly from the flushed head. His curls have dried recklessly and his eyes are so impossibly bright. He looks beautiful, though part of Crowley still has to wince at how dishevelled, at how _undone_ he looks. Crowley's fault in a way that he wants to feel both proud of and guilty for.

"Angel." His voice makes the word sound raw, naked. But there's nothing after it, he doesn't know what to say now. Aziraphale's expression is so soft above him, and Crowley doesn't know what to do with that. He'd wanted for so long and he'd be so careful to go the angel's pace, waiting, hoping, promising that he would never be someone who demanded things from him, that he would never tell Aziraphale he wasn't enough. Never. Maybe part of him had convinced himself that Aziraphale was content with the distance.

He knows there's too much in his face, he looks down instead. Immediately he notices the mess he'd made of the carpet and the angel's bare feet, the pale streaks of come he'd left across both. He snaps his fingers to clean the mess away, wonders if he should apologise. His world feels upside down suddenly. A raw and unexpected taste of desire where he'd tentatively assumed there would be none. He finds himself suddenly wondering whether the never knowing would have been better than the having once and then never again.

There's a warm hand on his face, stroking gently.

"That may have been a little presumptuous of me," Aziraphale says quietly. He looks over Crowley's head, and Crowley realises that his wings are still out, still curving forward eagerly - desperately - for the angel's touch.

He sends them away, though he doesn't miss the soft noise of disappointment.

"No," Crowley says simply. "No, you know it's not." He rises on shaky legs, lets his hands wrap round the angel's still-damp body, lets himself be brave enough to fall in. Aziraphale's hands are on his face, pulling him close. He can't do anything but kiss him, the first faintest pressure something like worship, the second simply desperate. They open to each other, kiss in the way Crowley had always wanted to, the way they'd never been allowed. Kiss until the furious newness of it finally settles into simple enjoyment, leaving them exploring the warmth of it, feeling the faint crackle of their conflicting essences meeting.

He should have kissed him first, Crowley realises, before kneeling at his feet and opening his mouth. Worship before blasphemy.

Aziraphale is the first to ease back, but slowly.

"Can we be -" he frowns as if the question he's about to ask is a terrible imposition. "Can we be this?"

Crowley gives a croaking laugh and finds his hand has lifted to grasp Aziraphale's, and then press it to his bare chest. The fingers that spread there are warm and strong.

"Yes, angel." Crowley lets the words be soft, lets them be honest in a way that pulls him open and allows Aziraphale to see everything inside him. "We can be this. We can be anything we want now."


End file.
